The Adventures Of Angelica And Friends
by GrandpaJoeProductionFanfiction
Summary: Set 23 years after my one-shot "The Afterlife." When a group of high-ranking Separatists need a new member for their elite organization, one of them suggests a girl who has been dead for over two decades. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, the group revives the girl. But in a twist of fate, the girl ends up being a little more than the group can chew.
1. We're Going To Unearth A Grave

**Author's Note: Before you read "** **The Adventures Of Angelica And Friends** **" you should read my one-shot "The Afterlife" and my fanfic "Matthew's Birthday: A Novelization" in order to better understand the events that lead up to this new fanfic.**

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While there was reason to be jubilant in California, a group of people in Mexico City were feeling despondent as they watched a news reporter for the _Separatist News Agency_ say, "Good morning, well it's not a good morning, a tragedy has occurred today. A new Othersider has been born. Stephanie Ping Hirsch, daughter of Sam Hirsch and Jackie Hirsch Zhao is the newest threat to the Separatist Union. Several prominent figures in the union like Rosie Miller and Ronald Boxwood have all released public statements about this endeavor."

One of the three people sitting around a table, Ashley Rosario, a dark skinned woman with wavy hair in her early twenties, pointed at the television and exclaimed, "Ugh, another one! That makes seven!"

"God, I keep getting texts from my partners. Yes, I have heard of the new Othersider, I'm not stupid," Ashley said as she replied to a message from one of her accomplices.

It was at that point that the group's leader, Ronald Boxwood, entered the room with his wife rhetorically asking, "Hey hey hey, look who's back?"

"Kendall!" The entire room erupted as they were happy so see Kendall back after she had been arrested for disrupting an important event for the Othersiders the day before.

Another person in the room, Heather Burromuerto, asked Kendall, "So, how was California, people still fascinated about that excuse for a person?"

"Yeah," Kendall said as she replied sarcastically.

"It's not just California, I had a chance to sneak back into Flagstaff and get my stuff back, the streets were totally crowded. But now, we need to work on fixing this problem," Ronald said as he got into his chair at the table.

"Why don't we recruit someone new to our group, and show the Othersiders we mean business," Ashley recommended enthusiastically as she was eager to get back at the Othersiders.

Ronald replied, "That's an excellent idea. But I guess we are going to need a new chair."

After Ronald pointed out a small problem, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, replied in his East Asian accent, "How about that one?"

"Eh, no! You can no take away my chair," Jorge, a man with dark skin and a black moustache siting on the chair Kim referred to replied in a Mexican accent.

Kim was taken aback by the man's response and asked, "But you are a Janitor?"

"We prefer 'Custodian,' and I am on my..eh...break."

Kim wouldn't stand for Jorge's responses, so he pulled out gun and shot Jorge.

While everyone else looked at him in awe, Kim replied, "Looks like there is literally an empty chair."

"Good thinking Kim," Ronald replied with a congratulating look in his eyes.

At first the group thought that finding a new member for their group would be a piece of cake, unfortunately for them, that turned out to be false. For the remainder of the day, the five members of the group interviewed several people, but none of them met their standards.

Ronald put his _iPad_ on the table, leaned back in his chair and exclaimed, "We've done all of these interviews and we have yet to find the person we want."

It was at that moment that the group heard a noise in the background; it was the voice of Tommy Pickles from the animated series _Rugrats_ saying, "No, not even the zoo, not my brother. Oh, we gots to figure out how to get the old not strong Dilly back."

Alexandria Burromuerto, the daughter of Heather, watched what appeared on the screen of her phone and said, "Man, this show is fucking great. I wonder how these babies didn't die after escaping so many times, or why the parents didn't have their kids taken away for being so negligent."

"Hey Alexandria, can you keep it down? We're trying to work over here," Kim directed at the girl.

Heather jumped in and told Kim, "Don't bother; she's been binge-watching _Rugrats_ all week. I couldn't get her to respond to me for the last few days."

"Sure, but you have to admit _Rugrats_ is one hell of a show. Good, honest animation, much better than the crap we have today," Ashley added with her usual cynicism about contemporary television.

Ronald was quick to jump into this conversation and added, "You know, I was actually reading an article that said _Rugrats_ was inspired by the life story of girl who died in 1994, and that girl was Angelica."

"Ah Angelica, now there's great storytelling right there. Even if the real life Angelica was half as good as the one on _Rugrats_ , I'd still give her the job," Ashley said reminiscing about her childhood watching the Blonde-haired girl on television.

"Well, why don't we. Let's give her the job," Ronald replied.

His wife, Kendall Perkins, replied, "But like you said, she's dead Ronald."

"Sure, but that doesn't mean we can't bring her back. The Chinese have been working on technology that can help severely injured people properly live again. If we combine that new technology with some other kinds we could have Angelica in our group," Ronald suggested.

While the rest of the members looked and felt quite skeptical about the idea of resurrecting Angelica from the dead, Ronald added, "Look, all of our interviewees sucked and we literally have nothing to lose if we try this."

Once Ronald explained it in this manner, the group nodded in agreement, leading Ronald to get out of his chair and say, "Great. Guys, get ready, we leave in an hour. We're going to unearth a grave."


	2. Don't Tell Me You're Proud Of That?

Once the hour had passed, Ronald, Kendall, Kim, Heather, Alexandria, and Ashley all met up in the garage. They got into Ronald's SUV and drove to Benito Juárez International Airport where Ronald had his Sheathipede-class transport shuttle waiting for takeoff. Ronald had called the airport to have the shuttle ready for when he and his group arrived. Traffic delayed them for about another hour, but once they made it on airport grounds it was easy access to the hangers as Ronald had special passes. The six of them got out of Ronald's SUV and were greeted by the pilot of Ronald's shuttle, an OOM pilot battle droid. The pilot droids looked similar to the standard B-1 battle droids and other versions of their counterpart, except the pilot droids had blue markings, mainly on their chest plates.

The six of them boarded Ronald's shuttle after the pilot droid entered first, and once they were inside the cabin they watched as the door was shot by the pilot on his controls. The passengers could feel the shuttle begin to hover over the ground and prepare to reach higher altitudes. The four pincer-like legs retracted as landing gear was no longer necessary and the shuttle rose up towards the sky. The ship looked like oddly-shaped tube in the sky, with a reversed dorsal fin, a quadrilateral shape that looked more like a triangle with a flat top and the hypotenuse facing the back of the shuttle, in the rear. They were some of the first vehicles that could enter the stratosphere, making them the first wave of the next generation of travel. The flight was only about half an hour long, Sheathipede-class transport shuttles were about six times faster than commercial jets, making them the go-to vehicles for Separatist officials traveling long distances. Although, they weren't usually carrying six passengers at a time.

The shuttle landed in a forested region of the San Bernardino National Forest to avoid being seen by anyone. It was a huge risk for these high ranking Separatists to be in the United States or any NATO-allied nation. If they were caught, they would most likely be used in a prisoner exchange, or even worse, be imprisoned in one of many top secret prisons where the rule of law does not apply. Ronald had informed one of his contacts with Separatist sympathies in the Southern California region to leave an SUV with shovels and a pickaxe at the location the shuttle landed. The SUV was there when the group arrived; the group took off in the SUV while the pilot droid stayed back in the shuttle.

Ronald drove the SUV to the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Redlands, California, the cemetery where Angelica was buried in over twenty years ago. The cemetery was closed on the weekend, meaning that the group had to jump over the gate to get in. They threw their tools over the gate first and then prepared to help Kim, the heaviest of the group over the gate.

As Kim grabbed the spike at the top of the gate, Ronald screamed, "God, Kim! Cut back on the cheese, your fat ass is all over my face!"

"It's okay, just a little more," Kim said as he dismissed Ronald's suggestion.

The group got their heaviest member over the fence, meaning that getting everyone else over would be a piece of cake. Instead of having the entire group pitch in, Ronald didn't need any help getting Ashley, Heather, and Alexandria over the gate. It was now just Ronald and his wife, Kendall, who were outside the cemetery. Kendall didn't need help getting over the gate; she put her years of gymnastics to good use and easily made it over the gate. Ronald followed his wife jumped the gate. Ronald grabbed the pickaxe and everyone else grabbed a shovel before walking towards the graves.

The group stopped at a grave where Kim was sitting on the headstone when Ronald began to say, "Okay, so let's break up and try to find Angelica's grave. An informant told me that the police patrol this cemetery, so be on the lookout. If you find the grave of spot any officers alert the others. We'll meet back here."

The six of them broke off into separate groups and explored the quasi-Victorian-style cemetery. The land was covered with trees and other greeneries, making it a beautiful place to visit when there was daylight but made the group feel like they were in a horror movie at night. For the next two hours the group searched all over for a grave that matched Angelica's information. By the end of their search many in the group were beginning to question if Angelica was even burred at Hillside, or if she had ever existed in the first place. Could it be that the 'Rugrats Theory' was just a fabricated story, fake news?

After two hours of searching the cemetery the group met back at their rendezvous point, where Ronald asked, "How could we not find her? They told me she was here."

"Well, what about the grave of the headstone I was sitting on. It has a person who died on March 5, 1994," Kim pointed out.

Ronald stared Kim down, giving his a frustrated look before asking sarcastically, "Don't tell me you're proud of that?"

The group decided to put the fact that Kim had wasted two hours of their life behind them and began to work. Ronald took the pickaxe and began to breakthrough the layers of cement and ground at the top of the grave. The rest of the group dug into the ground until one of their shovels hit something hard, Angelica's casket. Ronald took Alexandria's shovel out of her hand and used it to pry the casket out of the ground. Once the casket made it to the surface the other group members grabbed it by the poles on the side. Their work was done, they had retrieved Angelica's casket, now all they had to do now was get back to the shuttle. The hardest thing to do was get Kim over the gate, but once he was over, getting Ashley and Alexandria was quite a simple job.

Kim, Ashley, and Alexandria raised their arms up in order to grab their side of the casket as Ronald said, "Okay, here it goes. That's not the Angelica I know."

The team on the outside grabbed the casket, but it slipped as it was pushed out, causing it to open and fall all over Alexandria, leading to her screaming, "Oh, God, no!"

Alexandria saw the rotting corpse of Angelica after twenty years of decomposition. Most of the skin had decayed, leaving a skull with bits of skin and Blonde hair. Heather, Kendall, and Ronald jumped the gate and helped Alexandria get back up. Ronald picked up all of the pieces that fell out of the casket and put them back where they belong. Ronald and Kim put the casket in the trunk of the SUV as the rest of the group boarded the vehicle to leave the scene. It was a about a half hour drive back to the shuttle, but once they arrived everyone helped get the casket into the shuttle in order to leave as soon as possible.

As the group boarded the shuttle, Heather asked, "Where are we going next?"

Ronald turned to her and replied, "We need to stop in Tijuana in order to refuel. Then, it's off to Beijing, that's where the magic happens."

Thanks to the speed of the Sheathipede-class transport shuttle, the group left California, arrived in Tijuana, and landed at the airport in less than five minutes. During the five minutes that it took for the Tijuana airport crew to refuel the shuttle, Ronald contacted Chinese President Xi Jinping and told him he needed to use the _Regenesis_ technology Chinese scientists were perfecting. Xi authorized the operation, and as soon as the shuttle was done refueling, Ronald got back on board and the group headed to China.


	3. A Superior Alternative To Death

The flight across the Pacific was about two hours and fifteen minutes long. Ronald's shuttle landed at Beijing Capital International Airport at four in the afternoon, local time. A People's Liberation Army convoy was waiting on the runway of the temporarily shut down airport in order to transport the body to the operating center. Chinese PLA soldiers took the casket from the hull of Ronald's shuttle and boarded it into the back of a military vehicle. As this vehicle left the airport while being followed by police officers in their cars, Ronald and the crew were taken to a hotel where they could catch up on sleep.

Angelica's corpse was taken to the PLA Military Hospital 301 in Beijing. 301 was the hospital where many Chinese Communist Party members go to get treatment and to be "treated," It was a hospital buried in conspiracy. Once the convoy arrived at 301 PLA soldiers unloaded the casket from their vehicle and brought it into the heavily protected hospital. The casket was taken to a room on the top floor where a group of scientists were getting ready to start the preliminary steps of the operation. The three scientists were dressed in scrubs, masks, and gloves as they were about to work with biohazardous materials.

The scientists opened the casket and found the decomposing body of Angelica Pickles all twisted. One of the scientists, Dr. Chen Lianqiu, straightened up the corpse while another scientist, Dr. Luo Ming, grabbed a small saw and began to cut the top of Angelica's skull off. An assistant simultaneously began to take off the remaining articles of clothing Angelica was still wearing. Luo pulled Angelica's decaying brain out of her skull and placed it on the table next to him. He picked up the small saw again and began to cut into Angelica's throat and abdomen. Luo pulled apart the rotting skin and pulled out the vocal cords and all of the organs. Instead of saving the organs like the brain and vocal cords, Dr. Liang Guotin had the assistant take them to a lab to see if the lab team could figure out what blood type Angelica was.

Chen and Luo sat Angelica's body up as the Liang tied a series of wires around it. These wires looked similar to a skydivers' parachute backpack, they were attached to a pulley system that lifted the corpse from the table to a tall, clear, glass tank. The ceiling of the tank began to seal up in order so that the tank could fill up with a very special substance. The tank was a bacta tank; bacta was a thick and gelatinous substance used to cure severe injuries, like burns, and could also stop the decomposition process. Bacta was a synthesized version of balm, an extremely rare substance that was only known to exist in one place. Unfortunately for Separatist scientists, that place was in the United States, meaning they had to use the synthetic version. Since the brain and vocal cords were so important to the operation they got their own smaller Bacta tank.

Ronald woke up in his hotel room at around one in the morning after sleeping during what would usually be his sleeping hours. He got a call from 301 informing his that they were almost ready to advance to the next step of the operation and that he was more than welcomed to come watch. It would actually be beneficial for the team if Ronald came and observed them since he was such a high-ranking Separatist official, and if he was impressed with their work he might even give them higher positions with better pay. He agreed to go and see the operation out of curiosity. None of the other group members wanted to go see the operation since they had just awakened from their long needed sleep after desecrating a grave and traveling halfway around the world. A black _Audi A6_ , the car of choice for China's ruling elite, was stationed outside when Ronald exited the hospital. The driver took him straight to 301 where the three scientists stood there waiting for him.

After the driver opened Ronald's door, Liang approached the vehicle and said, "Dr. Boxwood, welcome to 301 Military Hospital."

"Thank you, so how's the work coming along?" Ronald asked.

Chen replied, "The ten hour cleansing period is almost over. Once we reach the ten hours, we will exhume the body, brain, and vocal cords out of the bacta and begin scanning them for the reconstruction process."

"How long should that take?" Ronald asked.

Luo interrupted and said, "About half an hour, our cybernetics team has already begun working on the mechanical replacements."

"Very good, _Regenesis_ is showing itself as a superior alternative to death," Ronald added in an arrogant tone.

Even though Ronald spoke very highly of the process, the fact was that _Regenesis_ was not an exact science. The concept of _Regenesis_ was proposed by a so-called Biologist named Ellen Ogden, she was a secretive woman who many considered to be a mad scientist. Her twin brother, Edgar Ogden, had many scientific interests but he mainly focused on technology. The only thing worse than their posture and pale skin were their social skills. Many though it was this lack of loyalty to social standards that lead them to come up with the idea of combining robotics with sentient life. Scientists all over the Separatist Union were working on the Ogden's work after, according to legend, the sister tried to destroy it. The story Separatist scientists told each other said that in a fit of rage, Ellen spilled acid all over their computers. It was suspected that she had suffered some kind of mental breakdown. Anyways, the data that survived was being examined by scientists all over the world who were both trying to apply and rediscover the destroyed work of the Ogden twins.


	4. Cheap Chinese Steel

Once Ronald and the scientists reached the room where the procedure was unfolding, they waited until around two-thirty in the morning to extract Angelica from the bacta tank. Ronald watched Angelica's corpse being pulled out of the viscous material after Liang pressed a button controlling the machine the wires were attached too. The machine brought Angelica back to the table where she was worked on hours before. After the machine lowered the body, Chen and Luo sat it up so Liang could disconnect the wires that wrapped around her chest. The bacta stopped the decaying process, leaving Angelica with flaps of loose skin all over her upper body. The skin on her legs had mostly decayed to the point where the bones were beginning to break.

Liang extracted the brain and the vocal cords from their individual bacta tanks and handed them over to the assistant to take them to the cybernetics team. Their job would be to fill the missing parts of the brain and vocal cords with small machinery that would make them function like before she died. Ronald observed as the team of scientists scraped away all of the remaining skin, leaving Angelica's bare skeleton. The time had come to reconstruct Angelica; a camera mounted to the roof was pulled down to where her body way lying in order to scan her most important features. This scan would create a computer-generated image that when combined with images of the Angelica during life would serve as a guide during the reconstruction.

As Liang began repairing Angelica's broken leg by cutting off the damaged part and replacing it with a piece of metal, Ronald commented, "You better not be using that cheap Chinese steel."

"Don't worry, Dr. Boxwood, you and I both know that Chinese materials are only used when profits are a concern," Liang assured Ronald.

The same process that occurred with the leg happened throughout the body. Various bones were cut off and replaced with a piece a metal because they had begun to decay before the bacta treatment and were quite fragile. Ronald counted over thirty pieces of metal, and that wasn't counting the big dome that would cover her skull. The biggest one was a back brace made out of two robotic arms that in theory could tear through the skin and act as additional limbs. Ronald thought that an event requiring Angelica to have more than two limbs was unlikely to happen, but he let them be implanted. Once he finished repairing all of the weak bones, Liang began laying out several small servers that were all connected by microwires thinner than a strand of hair. The function of these servers and microwires were to serve as the "nervous system," they would relay information from the brain to the several muscles, organs, and cybernetic implants the servers would be connected to.

When a member of the cybernetics team returned the brain and vocal cords to the team of scientists, Ronald pointed at them and asked, "What did you do to them?"

Liu Xiuying, a woman in her early thirties who had defied Chinese cultural standards by focusing on her career instead of getting married, pointed at the servers and said, "These servers right here will serve as motivators, they will make the rest of the brain work. We uploaded all the information Unit 61398 found us. We did the same for the vocal cords; Unit 61398 was able to find an old video on her father's computer. The videos were converted into a digital format since they were taken in the 1990's. The quality was not as adequate as we had hoped for, but we got the vocal cords to produce a sound similar to her original voice."

Unit 61398 was a faction of the PLA that focuses of hacking, while their usual victims are large corporations they made an exception this time and hacked the computers of Angelica's relatives and searched them for any information pertaining to the deceased girl. The information gathered in the cyber-attack helped reengineer the vocal cords, fill the servers in the brain with enough information to stimulate "appropriate" brain activity, and help create a map for the facial reconstruction process.

Liang connected two thin tubes to the brain, slid the brain into the brain cavity, sealed the top of the skull with the metal dome, and began to connect the wires he laid out to the sever at the bottom of the brainstem, creating an artificial nervous system. Luo brought over a pair of artificial eyes with cameras where the lens would be in real eyes. The irises of these prosthetic eyes were cerulean blue, the eye color she had in life and the eye color of her mother. Angelica's mother was not the woman who was currently married to her father, a woman whose eyes were a lighter shade of blue, but a woman who died over three and a half decades ago. Liang connected the microwires of the eyes to the server at the brainstem; the body looked like a skeleton with two bright blue eyes peering back at you.


	5. We Can Go Get Some Pancakes

The time had come to introduce the biological aspect to the operation. The lab had figured out that Angelica was O positive in life. Her blood type was the most popular blood type in the world, meaning that it wouldn't be hard to find a "donors" in China. Unlike in the west, organ donations don't take months or even years in China, thanks to a surplus of political prisoners. Two guards brought in two different women. One of the women was a Falun Gong practitioner from Fujian province. Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that began in China in the early 1990s. The practice became so popular that the Chinese Communist Party saw it as a threat to their rule. The CCP used their media outlets to label Falun Gong an "evil cult" and a suicide cult that drove people to murder their own children. Of course, these claims were completely fabricated but the campaign changed the public's perception of the practice, thus making arresting the practitioners acceptable.

The other woman was a Russian political prisoner who Ronald spoke of by saying, "Apparently, she went to prison for not voting for Putin."

He chuckled a bit after making his comment about the flaxen blonde haired woman. The Russian woman would supply the muscles, skin, and hair while the Falun Gong practitioner would supply the organs. Before the operation could continue any further, Luo asked why they needed the Falun Gong practitioner's organs if they were going to use body parts from the Russian woman. Liang told him that using the Falun Gong practitioner's organs would send a message that these practitioners were not human and could be discarded whenever.

The twisted Liang gaged the Russian woman before tying her down to a table and digging his saw into her skin. He took his saw and cut the side of the woman's body, shocking the previously vainglorious Ronald. The woman's screams were eventually silenced when her blood began to asphyxiate her. By the time Chen and Luo were pulling her skin and muscles off her skeleton she had already died. The two scientists shook the woman's skin like you would a tarp or large piece of cloth, getting blood all over the floor. The assistant gathered the woman's organs to send them to other hospitals who were expecting to do organ transplants and remove the woman's bloody skeleton from the table.

Chen and Luo took the skin to an adjacent room and washed out all the blood. While they left the muscles below the top of the neck intact, they removed all of the facial muscles. Artificial muscles that would connect to one of the many servers had been created to sit on top of the face and give off an appearance that looked identical to the one she had in life. The brought the skin back into the room and began to cover the skeleton in a substance that would bind the bones and metal to the muscles. They placed the artificial muscles on Angelica's skull before they began to slide the skeleton into its new outer protective layer.

The Falun Gong practitioner witnessed what happened to the Russian woman and resisted being put on the table by the guards, but she wasn't much of a hindrance for them. Liang didn't gag her because he wanted her to hear her own screams as she died. He started cutting from the abdomen and went all the way up to the throat. Liang started removing the intestines and abdomen-level organs since the practitioner needed the upper organs to continue living. He organized all of the abdomen-level organs inside Angelica as a plastic surgeon adjusted the parts of the face that did not line up with the artificial muscle. Liang returned to the dying practitioner, removed the stomach, pancreas, liver, and gallbladder, and placed them to Angelica.

Liang removed the left lung, making it harder for the practitioner to breath. His torture of the woman was overkill at this point; she was already dying of severe blood loss due to having her organs ripped out of her. She finally died after Liang ripped her right lung and heart out of her and placed them inside Angelica. Once the scientists were done with the practitioner the assistant placed the body on a cart and wheeled it off to the incinerator. Liang joined Chen and Luo in connecting all of the organs to their respected servers and heart to the veins and arteries embedded in the muscles of the Russian woman and the two thin tubes connected to the brain.

After about a half hour of work all the organs were in their place and Angelica was ready to be sealed up. Liang grabbed a needle and stitched together the cut on Angelica's torso. Ronald pointed at Angelica's naked body and recommended they cover it up. The assistant ran out of the room, returned with some basic women's cloths, and put them on Angelica. Liang attached a heart monitor to Angelica's arm to track the heart's movement after they started it again.

The time had come for Regenesis to show what it could do, Liang went over to a computer and said, "When I select the enter key, we will all be witnesses to the first revival of a human."

He pressed the key and leaned back in his desk chair to witness his accomplishment, but when nothing happened, Ronald said, "Nothing happened."

"Do not worry, let me make sure everything is set up correctly," Liang said as he began to check the code on his computer.

When Liang realized that the code was correct he pressed the enter key again, hoping to get a pulse, but to no avail.

As the team of scientists realized that their last two years of work had gone down the drain with this failed operation, Ronald said, "Well, that was two lives and 100 million Yuan well spent."

"Do you guys want to go back to my hotel and get some breakfast?" Ronald asked in an attempt to alleviate the awkward vibe of the room.

Before anyone else could answer they all felt a new presence take over the room. This energy was dark and cooled the room. Everyone felt weak as the energy passed throughout the room, but when the energy dissipated the most astonishing thing happened. Everyone in the room stopped trying to figure out what the energy was when they heard a low beeping noise.

Liang turned his head towards Angelica and exclaimed, "The heart monitor reads a pulse!"

A smile came over Ronald's face, he headed towards the girl's body, restrained himself from touching her, and said, "Lift up the table."

Chen did as Ronald said and pressed a button that tilted the table upright. Ronald stepped back as the table adjusted and the heart beats became more common. After about five minutes Angelica began to move. Ronald removed the arm restraints and Angelica fell five inches. The drop lead to Angelica finally opening her eyes and becoming aware of her surroundings. She didn't say anything as she turned her head around but Ronald walked back as she started to move. Everyone expected the first thing she would say would be something like "Who are you" or "Where am I," but what she did was what should have been expected in hindsight. Angelica stopped looking around the room and lead out a loud scream.

She ran around the room with her arms flailing in the air, threw things around, and screamed, "Ah, get off me! Tommy, help me!"

Ronald ran towards the scientists and screamed, "Go, go! Let's get out!"

As Angelica ransacked the room, Ronald turned to the scientist as they sat at on the floor with their backs to the door, and said as he tried to catch his breath, "Okay, let's get someone to bolt this door shut and we can go get some pancakes."


	6. A Classic But Simple Question

Ronald got off the floor, leaving Liang, Chen, and Luo against the door as he walked over to his wife and fellow group members who had just arrived. They were all well rested and ready to see what their grave robbing had lead to. Before Ronald could respond their attention was taken by two security guards running towards the door. The guards loaded darts into the chambers of their rifles, the darts were tranquilizer darts and they were preparing to barge into the operating room. The scientists got out of the way when the guards approached the door and proceeded to kick down the door. The guards walked in together and didn't go their separate ways out of fear of being ambushed.

The two guards followed the sound of Angelica singing, "Now my world is perfect!"

They fired their weapons once they had a clear shot at the Blonde girl. As soon as the two darts hit the girl on her back and her rear, she went down faster than Jeb Bush's poll numbers. Heather kissed her teeth when she saw Angelica; the memory of being shot by a former competitor, Izzy, on the reality show she was on over a decade ago returned to mind. The two guards sat Angelica in a chair as Liang returned with a knockoff pill of the antipsychotic _Risperdal_ , put it in Angelica's mouth, and made her swallow it.

"How did I forget that one piece, the Schizophrenia?" Ronald whispered to himself in a corner as he realized why Angelica literally went crazy.

Even though he looked cool and calm on the outside, he kept beating himself over this on the inside for the next two hours. How could he be so careless and forget the key part of information that made Angelica's true story so infamous. Ronald knew he couldn't control Angelica the way she was, she was of no use to the group or the Separatist Union in this condition. He constantly called out the faults of others all throughout his life, so he didn't want to imagine what they would say about him because of this blunder. He theorized that if he kept acting calm the others would not catch on and use this against him. Not just was this a stain on his reputation, what were the implications on his work? His job required him to be completely focused; he couldn't afford to make "silly mistakes" as his younger sister, Alice, would say. The slightest error could be the difference between a breakthrough and an explosion.

Ronald stopped thinking about the operation when Angelica began to cough and said, "Where, where am I?"

"Don't worry, Miss Pickles, you're safe here. Welcome back to life," Ronald said.

"Back, life, how?" Angelica asked.

"The miracle of technology and scientific innovation. Don't worry, we're here to help. First off, a classic but simple question, who is the president?"

"Ugh, Clinton, is that right?" Angelica replied struggling and unsure of her answer.

The entire group smiled and nodded, Ronald looked at Kim after listening to Angelica's response and gave him a sly look before telling Angelica, "We sure have a lot to cover."

Ronald went over the last two decades with Angelica in under ten minutes. He went over everything from September 11, to the Iraq war, to Obama's presidency, the ongoing conflict, and who the "fat guy" in the tunic suit was when Angelica interjected.

When Kim told Angelica his name, she thought it over and asked, "Kim Jong Un, the guy who ran the Korean Barbecue on Highland Avenue?"

"Uh, no. Supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," Kim added.

Even though Ronald knew that the antipsychotic would eventually run out, he decided to put Angelica to the test when he said, "Well, we didn't just bring you back for fun, we want something from you."

"Okay, what do you want?" Angelica asked.

Ronald grabbed a tablet that was on the desk, found an article from _Xinhua_ , held the screen in front of Angelica, and said, "This is Stephanie Hirsch; a newborn, only a few days old. She is the newest addition to our rivals, and, you know, it would be such a tragedy if she were to disappear."

"I know some guys who can do that," Angelica interrupted, recalling several of the underworld connections she made in order to fuel her narcotics addiction.

Ronald sealed his eyes, held this thumb and index finger, and said, "No no no no no, we want you to do this, we'll provide the transportation and everything. You get Stephanie and we'll consider it a payment for the 100 million Yuan we spent on bringing you back to life."

"Well, why not, what do I have to lose? Besides, 100 million Yuan, I don't know if that's Bill Gates money or pocket change," Angelica replied.

Ronald wrapped his arm around Angelica and as the group walked out of the room he told her, "Don't worry, with China manipulating its currency and all, no one really knows how much 100 million Yuan is."


	7. Getting In A Car With A Stranger

Once the group exited PLA Military Hospital 301, they separated into three groups and got in three different black _Audi_ A6s. Ronald, Kendall, and Angelica rode in the first car and Ronald ordered the driver to take them back to the airport. The tree black cars traversed the Beijing highways at five in the morning local time for about an hour. Angelica put her hands on the windows and took in the city for the entirety of the trip to the airport. She remembered her father, Drew, speaking about various business opportunities in China, business opportunities that often consumed him and distracted him from supervising his only daughter. When the cars arrived at the airport, the seven of them made their way onto Ronald's shuttle and immediately departed for Tijuana.

Ronald communicated with his contacts in Southern California and organized a guide for Angelica when she would embark on her mission. He informed Angelica about how she would get to her location, who would help her get there, and what she would be doing. She would take the shuttle to the outskirts of the town where the Hirsches were currently at and meet up with Carlos, a Separatist sympathizer who would take her to her destination. The trip was about two hours and fifteen minutes long, just as long as it was going to China, and with the time change the group arrived in Tijuana a bit after five in the afternoon. There was an SUV waiting at the airport to take them to the safe house, a warehouse in the middle of the city.

Since they had hours to kill until Angelica left on her mission, Ronald sent Ashley on a mission of her own. She was to go out and bring food for the group. Kim commented about Ashley being a Latina and sending her to get Tacos, to which she replied with her usual "I'm not Mexican" response. But, before Ashley left to go get the food Ronald stopped her and asked her to purchase some _Risperdal_ from one of the many street corner pharmacies. If Angelica was to succeed in her mission she couldn't be mentally unstable. Around half an hour later she returned with disposable plates of Tacos and Tortas covered in plastic wrap and a bottle of _Risperdal_. Ronald slipped one of the pills in a taco he placed in front of Angelica and told her to eat it.

Hours after eating Ronald and a subdued Angelica rode back to the airport in the SUV. Ronald went over again what Angelica was going to do and he seemed to believe she understood what he was saying. He also gave her a one hundred and twenty-eight gigabyte _iPhone_ _7 Plus_ with a pair of _EarPods_ , two technologies that amazed Angelica when she first saw them, for her to use. Once they arrived at the airport, Angelica boarded the shuttle and took her seat. She looked around the cabin after the doors closed and the voice of the OOM pilot battle droid addressed her about the quick trip though the intercom. The shuttle took off and embarked on the dangerous journey of crossing into American airspace. After five minutes the pilot droid came on the intercom again and told Angelica that they had arrived at their destination.

They had arrived at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, a secluded area south of Oak Park, the Los Angeles suburb where Stephanie was currently at. When the doors of the shuttle opened, she saw Carlos, a man with tanned skin and dark hair in his late twenties standing in front of his car.

He approached her and said, "Angelica, I'm Carlos, and I'm here to take you where you need to go."

"Okay, sure. When has getting in a car with a stranger in the middle of the woods ever ended up badly?" Angelica rhetorically asked.

Angelica sat in the back of Carlos's car as he maneuvered through the few turns in the beginning of the journey. The roads eventually straightened out for the most part with only a few turns here and there. One such turn was when Carlos got off the Ventura Highway; he had been driving for ten minutes when he had to get on an exit ramp to get on a different road. It was at this moment that Angelica met someone who would change the way she would handle the mission.

As Carlos was about to make a right turn onto Lindero Canyon Road Angelica spotted a small body stumbling towards them. She lifted her arm towards the figure and asked Carlos what it was. He didn't know what is was so Angelica rolled down the window and called over the figure.

"Hey, come over here, where're you going?" Angelica asked dazed as she was unknowingly drugged.

As the figure got closer it was revealed that it was a little kid, no more than five years old. He had Blond hair, blue eyes, and he wore shorts and a messed up shirt. He had a large glass bottle in his hands; it most likely housed some sort of alcoholic beverage before the kid presumably drank it all. Angelica put the pieces together and realized that this kid was wondering because he was drunk. She called him over and asked him to get into the car, and instead of refusing getting in a vehicle with a stranger he opened the door and sat down in the seat next to the window Angelica was sitting in before sliding over to the other side. Carlos saw the face of the boy in his rear view mirror and almost screamed when he realized who it was.

Carlos made the right turn and drove off while Angelica asked the boy, "Hello, I'm Angelica, what's your name?"

"My name, huh. I'm Matthew, Matthew Litman," the boy responded in a grandiose tone as he pointed towards the sky.

"What were you doing out here?"

"Bitch, what part of Matthew Litman do you not understand? I can do whatever I want; I'm the baby of the mansion, well not anymore thanks to that Stephanie."

"Heh, that's funny, we're actually on our way to kidnap a newborn named Stephanie, aren't we Carlos?" Angelica asked Carlos to which he responded with a roll of the eyes.

"Wait, Stephanie, you mean Stephanie Hirsch?" Matthew asked

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"It's the same one I was talking about."

After Angelica realized that they were referring to the same Stephanie, Matthew leaned in and said, "You know, security is going to be really tight. I could help you get in and out without getting caught."

"You would do that?" Angelica asked.

"Yeah, it would be fun to be the only kid again."

She gave it a quick thought and ended up agreeing by saying, "Deal."

The two shook hands as Carlos continued down the road, getting closer to the Hirsch residence.


	8. Brother In A Past Life

Carlos kept driving until he reached the block before the end of the road. The road ended in the residential area where the Hirsches live, but the entire block was surrounded by security agents who were hired by Riley Litman, Matthew's father, to protect them. Matthew had told them to stay parked a bit behind the secure perimeter and that he would sneak in and get Stephanie. Carlos was really suspicious of letting him go and get Stephanie for them since he was the epitome of American consumerism and ignorance, but Angelica would have non it. Matthew snuck around with his back to the fence and then jumped across in order to sneak into the neighboring house, the Hirsches house.

While Matthew was gone, Carlos told Angelica, "I don't like this, sending that kid to get the girl. I wouldn't be surprised if it is a trap."

"Ah, what are you talking about, he seems like a cool kid," a still clearly drugged Angelica replied.

"Listen Angelica, you don't know who Matthew is. He is the child of the man who is funding the effort against us! Ronald would be very pleased with both us if you would take him with you back to Mexico. "

"Carlos, if my friends were here I bet we would kick your ass, and we'd do what we want!"

"Listen, pinche güera, you don't know shit about what you're doing. The only way to truly change the world is by getting rid of these Othersiders, not just the newborn!"

Angelica didn't know what Carlos was talking about; his speech was as disorganized and incoherent as people used to say her speech was. She didn't even know why she did what Ronald told her to do; she could have run away as soon as she stepped off the shuttle. She could go back to Yucaipa and see her old friend and dealer, 'Big Pimpin',' but she chose to continue the mission. It was almost as if some cold, external force had control over her destiny. The two sat in the car in complete silence for a few more minutes until they saw Matthew climb the fence while he held onto Stephanie's onesie with his teeth.

When he reached the car, he flung open the door, threw Stephanie onto Angelica's lap, and screamed at Carlos, "Go, go, but be careful, there guards on this street."

Carlos put the car in reverse and turned the steering wheel to the left to turn into the street behind the Hirsches block. Once Carlos adjusted the car, he drove to the end of the street and got back on the main road they had taken to their destination.

Matthew was busy catching his breath when Angelica told him, "Matthew, thank you, you made this so much easier."

"Just promise me she'll never, ever return," Matthew replied as he panted.

The four of them passed four different blocks as they left the scene of the crime, before Matthew called out, "Hey, hey, you, stop the car."

Once Carlos stopped, Matthew got out of the seat and told Angelica, "Hey come down, I want to show you something."

"Sure, what do you want me to do with the baby?" Angelica asked.

"Leave him here with your driver," he replied.

Carlos gave Matthew a dirty look before grabbing Angelica by the arm and telling her, "He's going to turn you in, you'll see it, he's bad news."

Matthew grabbed Angelica by the arm and pulled her away from the SUV. Carlos closed the door behind them and turned off the vehicle as he would have to wait to see what they were doing. To the right of Matthew and Angelica was a house hidden behind trees, bushes, and a brick wall; that house was the one at the end of a street leading into a cul-de-sac. To the left of the foliage blocking the house was a hill that had houses lined up horizontally. Matthew dragged Angelica to the top of the hill and helped over the gate with poles sticking out of the top. Angelica stood looking at the backyard of the second house, a two story, tan painted, Spanish tile roofed home, from the right as Matthew scaled the gate by himself.

"There, take a seat," Matthew said as he pointed towards a cushioned bench in front of an outdoor fireplace on the lower left side of the backyard from their perspective.

Angelica walked left, around the pool, and took a seat on the brown cushioned bench. There was a small coffee table with a glass top, surrounded by the bench, similarly cushioned chairs, and an ornate fireplace in front of it. The fireplace wasn't connected to anything, it just stood there, perched on a brick platform and sporting a mirror at the top. Instead of sitting down, Matthew walked passed Angelica and made his way into the house. After about a minute, Matthew returned with a bottle of _Johnnie Walker Black Label_ and two Scotch glasses with ice cubes. He handed one of the glasses to Angelica and filled it half ways before he sat on the bench seat to the left of Angelica and served himself.

"Thank you Matthew," Angelica said.

"Ah, don't mention it, someone's got to finish this Scotch," Matthew replied.

"So this is where you live?"

"Oh, hell no, it's too poor here."

"Well, then I guess we have different definitions of the word 'poor.' But, this isn't your house, then whose Scotch is this?"

"The guys who live here. In all fairness, this used to be my grandparent's old home before they sold it and moved to Westlake Village. Although, I did live here for a while after I was born, while the mansion I live in was under construction."

"A mansion, really?"

"You bet your sweet ass, it's called The Othersiders Mansion, named after the show my parents and most of the other guys that live there were apart of."

"They had their own show?"

"Yeah, _The Othersiders_ , they actually filmed a lot of the series in the garage of this house."

"Huh, I wonder what it would be like to have your own TV show. But this house, you just come here whenever you want?"

"When I'm in town, I live a bit up north."

"And they just let you?"

"They have too, I'm Matthew motherfucking Litman."

"So, who's Matthew Litman?"

"They say I'm Donald Trump meets Eric Cartman, with a hint Charlie Sheen, but they don't know what they're talking about. I'm not a looser, I'm winning!"

"Huh, winning, that's a great outlook."

The two sat there silently, sipping their Scotch, for a while until Angelica asked, "So, are you going to ask me anything?"

Without looking at her, Matthew replied before sipping his cup, "Not really."

"Well, I was brought back to life, by some guy named Ronald."

"Boxwood, Ronald Boxwood?"

"Yeah, do you know him?"

"Do I know him? If I may paraphrase the Tourette's Guy's dad, he's a big dick."

"Well, we just kidnap Stephanie for him."

"I mean, I don't like to benefit the Seps, but if it has to be done, then so be it."

"You know, I kept hearing about this Separatist thing, what is it?"

"It's basically fat-ass Kim, human _Metamucil_ ad Khamenei, and some others third rate dictators being themselves, without the 'tator' part, at least."

"Well, thanks for the update."

Angelica turned her head to the right and said to an empty space, "Hey, Tommy, you're back. Man, I've been having some adventures; you'd think I'm tripping."

Matthew looked at Angelica speak to air and began to get a bit nervous. He looked at Angelica and then looked down at his cup of Scotch and theorized it might have something to do with why she was speaking to thin air.

He chugged the remaining Scotch in his cup and said, "You know, Angelica, I think it's time to back."

Angelica turned to face Matthew and told him, "Okay, but I'd like you to know that I had fun with you tonight. It's almost as if you were my brother in a past life, and then I became your surrogate mother because our real mother was a stone-cold bitch."

"Sure, that's one way at looking at it," Matthew replied before picking up the bottle and heading over to the gate with Angelica.


End file.
